Animal rights concerning medical testing and consumption of animals in general has become a hot topic in the last few decades as more and more animal rights & awareness issues have entered the world stage. From a variety of backgrounds, groups have rallied to the cause of animals around the world that are involved in drug testing, cosmetic and experimental testing, and the general slaughtering of animals for food purposes. The most hotly contested issue has been drug testing where the development of potentially human life-saving substances is weighed against the life of these animals. This paper will show how recent scientific research has been working hard to increase the accuracy and usage of alternative testing methods as well as discuss what might happen if the butchering of animals for food purposes were to cease and how the two issues are related.

ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ ÃÂÃ Animal testing has had an important role in the development of many chemical substances in the course of research.

Used as a predictor of human reactions, the animals are sacrificed so that companies and scientists may find what types of effects a particular substance will have on a living organism. The proponents of animal testing have traditionally pointed to studies, which they contend, prove that synthetic, non-animal testing options are not as successful as using animals. However, the studies they cite were often performed by the very laboratories that profit from animal testing. This data should be taken with a grain of salt until everything can be verified or disproved by sources that are more objective (Regan 1).

In addition, there have been many cases where animal testing has yielded results that were later found to be in conflict with actual human reactions. For years, animal experiments on rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, monkeys, and baboons all revealed...

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